Hey Everyone!
Another super quick author's note, that I'm certain that you lot can guess what it's for: That's right, another music suggestion! I just love these. :)
This time around, my music suggestion would pair best with the very final scene at the end of this chapter. You'll know it when you see it, I'm sure.
And at that, I present it to you here: Deep Castle (Inside Bowser)
Feel free to check it out, if you'd like to. Anyways, all that being said, without any further ado, let's jump right into this new chapter, shall we?
Enjoy...
"Bee to the blossom, moth to a flame; Each to his passion, each to his game." - Helen Hunt Jackson
*BONUS QUOTE*
"Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal." - Earl Nightingale
2:47 P.M
Like moths to a flame, neither Nick and Judy respectively could resist the temptation of progress.
It was in their blood, it seemed. Having worked together as partners on the police force for nearly half a decade, at this point in time, their chemistry had only grown stronger, it seemed, and with it, their desire to take whatever life through at them one step at a time, however difficult it may have appeared on the surface. Work and all of its qualities, despite how infuriating and even dangerous it may have been at certain times, there was nothing that the two tiny officers could have asked for more than their stable passion.
Mundane activities aside, they were both truly destined for the thrill of the hunt, and the pleasure of progress.
Even now, as the two of them headed towards the office of their temporary superior, Chief Urzo, a place that they had already been summoned to many times before in the past, and usually under somewhat unsavory circumstances, they were both determined to carry out the job that they had been assigned, and the desire to finish what they had started, for better or worse. However, as they finally reared around the corner to where the grizzly bear's comparatively massive office was located, they were admittedly a bit surprised to find it completely vacant of any recent activity. Still resolute on what had to be done, they promptly made their way to the receptionist at the front of the building.
"Hey, do you know where Chief Urzo is? We were supposed to meet him in his office, but he's not there. Any idea where he went?" Judy politely questioned.
"I believe I saw him walking towards the break room a few minutes earlier. Try there!" The she-wolf suggested.
"Alright, sure thing." Judy exclaimed in gratitude. "Thank you!"
Bidding their goodbyes to the receptionist, the two officers then made their way towards the Precinct Seven break room, which was tucked away in one of the hidden reaches of the building, located down a lengthy hallway adorned with green wallpaper and the fresh scent of pine lingering in the air around them. Eventually, having promptly reached the aforementioned break room, Nick and Judy entered in through the wooden door, though it took the two of them and all their grit working together to push it open all of the way.
Once inside, they closed the comparatively heavy door behind them and took in the sight of Precinct Seven's break room.
It was a humble section of the building, clearly not intended to be seen by the public. The wallpaper was peeling, and the padded seats were old and wrinkled with age. In the far corner of the room, another she-wolf officer was dozing away with her head resting on her folded arms, soft snores filling the otherwise quiet interior of the room. A bit closer by, however, Nick and Judy came to the sight of Chief Urzo himself lounging in one of the larger-sized chairs, a box of assorted donuts placed on the table directly in front of him.
"Ah, good to see you, officers." Urzo called out in a welcoming tone of voice. "Sorry if you were expecting me to be in my office, but, well, I thought I deserved a bit of a break."
Judy smiled. "You and us both." She muttered, to which her grizzly superior nodded his head before taking another sip from his coffee mug. He swallowed and then stated;
"Yes, I just recently received word that the interrogation didn't go so well."
Judy visibly cringed. "So you heard about that?" She asked.
"You two have had a long day, so I'll give you the benefit of passing the slack to another pair of officers more willing to see the job through to the end. Though I can't say I'm very pleased with myself to be letting you two off on this, I suppose it's my fault to begin with; Trying to force you two to do work that you weren't properly prepared for. No matter. My officers will take care of that platypus while the three of us discuss the intelligence gathered from that little set-to scrimmage of yours at the warehouse in Beaverdam."
"We'll be discussing confidential information... In the break room?" Judy questioned with confusion, her nose twitching slightly all the while.
"Don't see why not. We have donuts here!" The bear claimed with a smug sort of grin. He picked up the box of pastries before leaning down and offering them to his subordinates.
"Help yourselves." He said.
"Ooo, gladly!" Nick reached out, but hesitated just before touching it. "Wait, is this one a bear claw, here? Ha! I get it! A grizzly bear giving me a bear claw! Clever one, chief."
"Just take the pastry, Wilde." Urzo grumbled flatly.
The fox simply smiled wide. "Sir yes sir." He quipped as he took hold of the cinnamon-caked bear claw before chomping down on it.
"In all seriousness, chief, would it not be better to discuss this somewhere a bit more private?" The rabbit officer asked, wringing her paws together with uncertainty.
"Somewhere more private? We're the only ones here, officer Hopps." Urzo retorted before taking a bite from his donut. "Well, aside from officer Lupa over there."
At that, the grizzly bear then pointed towards the wolf in the far corner of the room, whom was still sleeping soundly with her head resting upon one of the break room tables.
"But I don't think she'll be of any concern to us." He finalized with a wink.
"Well, you know what they say: Let sleeping dogs lie." Nick added, to which Urzo nodded, clearly unimpressed at the fox's attempt at a joke.
"Right." The bear mumbled unenthusiastically. "Confidential information or not, everyone in Precinct Seven has heard of what happened on over in Beaverdam, by now."
"You think so?" Judy interjected.
"With certainty. That shootout was probably the most exciting thing to happen 'round these parts since last springtime! You two are a real beacon of motivation for the others."
"The other officers really think that highly of us?"
Urzo nodded once again. "I'd be surprised if they didn't." He spoke without hesitation. "You're among the ZPD's best officers, and your work here has been very helpful for us."
Immediately detecting the praise behind Urzo's words, Nick himself then took to making yet another one of his favored sardonic comments;
"It's funny, thinking that we originally came here with intentions to put tickets on parked cars, yet now we're at the forefront of one of the Deciduous-District's most-"
Judy promptly cut the fox of with a slight elbow to the sternum, causing him to cough out a few small flakes of glaze from the pastry that he had been munching on.
"What my partner means to say..." The rabbit started. "Is that we're both very grateful for the opportunity, sir."
"Good." Urzo grunted. "I wouldn't want such fine officers to be weighed down with meaningless doubts. Now, to business... Tell me about what happened at the warehouse."
"Uh, the whole thing, or specific details?" Nick asked for clarification.
"Specific details, I suppose. I already know what happened, but since you two witnessed such a high-profile criminal gathering, I wanted to ask you personally if you happened to see or hear anything in particular from Iluka or his associates that stuck out to you. Anything important, that may be of assistance to Precinct Seven and the investigation here."
Judy pursed her lips. "We have a recording, which we can show you, but not much happened. Well, they did mention something about a tomb, whatever that's supposed to be."
In that moment, the grizzly bear, furrowed his brow and begun tapping his large black claws against the hard table surface. His eyes were narrowed in seeming thought.
"A tomb, you say? Hmm... I think I may know what they're looking for, now." He claimed slowly and steadily. "Give me a second."
From there, Chief Urzo then slipped one of his large, clawed paws into the pocket on his chest, fondling around a bit before pulling out his mobile device. He powered it on before searching and typing for a brief amount of time and eventually turning the phone around to show the screen to Nick and Judy, both of whom were still patiently waiting on him.
The grizzly bear pointed towards the screen. "Look at this." He muttered to them. "Tell me what you see."
Eyeing over the device as ordered, the two tiny officers came to the sight of a picture, no doubt pulled from Zoogle Images, of which displayed what appeared to be an old piece of fabric cloth. On it, a large, deer-like mammal with huge horns sprouting from its head was shown brandishing what seemed to be some sort of sword. The mammal was adorned with pieces of shining armor, and around its body, peculiar patterns of lines, shapes, and circles encompassed the deer in a maze-like patchwork of ancient cloth artwork.
Judging by the overall look and design of the piece of art, Nick and Judy both reasoned that it must've been some sort of tapestry from the Elktic civilization, an old and nearly forgotten group of elks and other deer-like mammals that had once resided over what now stood as the Deciduous-District.
The Elktics were from a time before the city had erected its towering and gleaming skyscrapers, and even before the first true settlement of Savannah-Central had sprung up around the watering hole in the days of old. It was a time when fear ruled the world and all mammals within it, and uncertainty dominated the minds who sought knowledge about the world around them. Science was underdeveloped, and many mammal species were still succumbed to the desire to walk on four legs and devour one another. Yet despite the dark times of those dark ages, the Elktic civilization had taken root in the woodlands, developed into one of the first complex cultural societies, and vanished, leaving nothing but ruins, relics, and old stories. Staring over the piece of artwork shown on the grizzly bear's phone, the fox simply couldn't resist the urge to let loose a snide remark.
"A really big deer with really big horns holding a really big sword?" Nick guessed.
"No, well, yes, but-" Urzo stumbled before hesitating and growling lowly to himself. "You're taking it too literally, Wilde! Do you know who this is, and what's being depicted?"
"Can't say I do, chief." The fox admitted, causing his superior to sigh aloud and take to explaining himself;
"This is Alastrine Brockernos, an Elktic king from long ago. He's somewhat of an old legend around these parts, but surviving historical evidence points to him actually having once existed, and serving as one of the greatest kings to ever rule over the Elktic civilization. He's long dead by now, of course, but he's been a key figure centered around various archaeological expeditions by Zootopian universities in the past; It's believed that he was buried somewhere in the woodlands with a trove of valuable treasure-"
"Valuable treasure?" Nick interrupted. "Now you have my attention." He remarked, though quickly silenced himself once he noticed his superior glaring at him. Urzo continued;
"As I was saying, it's believed that he was buried with a mountain of treasure, but the most prized artifact of all was his weapon of choice: The Sword of Kings, Elkscalibur."
"Elkscalibur? Yeah, I think I've heard that as a bedtime story before, a while back." Nick claimed. "Wasn't that thing pulled out of a rock, or something, right?"
Urzo sighed, fingering his brow for a moment before bothering to continue with his rather lengthy explanation.
"That part of the story is just a legend. An exaggerated myth spawned from some mouth-breathing storyteller. The Sword of Kings is real: There is real evidence out there that points to the sword having actually existed at one point in time, and was in the possession of the Elktic king Alastrine Brockernos, though no one has been able to find it before."
"Okay, so this sword thing might be real, but just what exactly are you getting at, chief? How does all of this have to do with Iluka?" Judy asked.
"It isn't just a history lesson, officer Hopps." Urzo grumbled. "Think about what Iluka Rombahe does for a living, and put the pieces together yourself."
A few moments passed, and each passing second only caused the sudden realization of her adversary's true intentions in the Deciduous-District to be revealed to her.
"The sword! Iluka is after the sword!" She shouted out, jumping up into the air in a stroke of excitement and cheer.
Urzo nodded, smiling ever so slightly to himself.
"Yes. It makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? The treasure mongering crime-lord of Outback-Island just so happens to stop by in the Deciduous-District, and you two just so happen to overhear him say something about a tomb. If Iluka's after that sword, then the first thing he'll have to do is find the tomb of Alastrine, though I have a feeling that he won't have it so easy; The tomb has been lost for centuries... Countless historians and archaeologists have tried finding it, but to no avail. The only one that seemed even remotely..."
The grizzly bear momentarily trailed off, moistening his lips as his eyes darted around, as if trying to put together the pieces of some sort of puzzle. Finally, he found his words;
"Of all the mammals that have tried to find it, the only one that seemed even remotely close to doing so was Grygorri Ratsputin."
"What?!" Nick blurted out. "Oh, so he's an archaeologist now too, huh?"
Urzo shook his head from side to side. "No no, I suppose I misspoke. Ratsputin was never an archaeologist, but he seemed to have a peculiar fascination with ancient history."
Nick narrowed his eyes in thought. Now that Urzo mentioned it, he had recalled seeing some peculiar artifacts dotted throughout Ratsputin's home during his last visit there.
"And how do you know this?" Judy asked.
"I'm the chief of police of Precinct Seven; Bogo would not have just blocked me out from seeing all of the evidence that was acquired from the rat's home. There were a lot of dusty old relics throughout the house, including some Elktic stuff. I remember taking note of it and doing some research. Apparently, Grygorri was a major funder for several research studies into the history and location of that tomb that we talked about earlier. I wouldn't be surprised if Iluka Rombahe had some sort of formal agreement with him."
"Maybe this has to do with the cane that was stolen from the archive!" The rabbit suddenly exclaimed. "Maybe it has something to do with all this!"
"Well, we know that much already. We wouldn't even be talking about this if it wasn't of any relation to what we're dealing with." Nick corrected.
"Right." Urzo said. "At the warehouse in Beaverdam, my men even discovered sticks of dynamite and digging tools. It's clear that Iluka is here for something underground."
At the sudden mention of that last word, the fox briefly thought back to a small, singular memory from his very first night in the Deciduous-District, where he and Judy had read through a small pamphlet explaining the various sights to see and things to do in the woodlands, including one peculiar sightseeing activity that had slid right off of his conscious without much thought. An underground location, a string of cave systems throughout the district perfect for transporting men and materials without much or any suspicion.
"The Painted Labyrinth..." He muttered beneath his breath.
"I beg your pardon, officer Wilde?" Urzo stated with raised eyebrows.
"T-think about it for a second, you guys! Isn't there a massive underground tunnel system right below our feet? Officer Hopps and I read about it in a little tourist pamphlet!"
"You mean the Painted Labyrinth?" The grizzly bear grumbled.
"Yeah, I remember that! I see what you're getting at!" Judy claimed cheerily as she lightly jabbed his shoulder. "Good thinking, Slick!"
Urzo cleared his throat aloud. "To clarify, you think that what Iluka's looking for - this ancient Elktic tomb - is hidden down in that stone-age cave system?" He grunted.
"Yes, I am. You said that nobody's been able to find this supposed tomb, right? What if they weren't looking in the right place? What if this tomb was built underground?"
"Preposterous." The bear growled. "Any fool would think that a burial site would be underground. Besides, I'm sure that other treasure hunters have already searched there."
"Maybe they weren't looking hard enough."
"We should set up an advanced investigation, maybe even some sort of raid, there!" Judy suggested, to which her grizzly bear superior sighed before stating out loud;
"If we schedule a raid, we'll need to alert the tourism department that owns the land beforehand: We don't want any tourists exploring the caves to be caught in the standoff."
"Smart move, papa bear." Nick quipped. "That'll save us some trouble."
Urzo grunted lowly before explaining his thoughts;
"Then, yes, but now, what we need to worry about is the time, since it may take a few days to alert the tourism department, clear everyone out of, and publicly shut down the Painted Labyrinth. Until then, all we can do is speculate. We don't even know whether this tomb or anything like it actually resides underground. We will have to do further research, and play our cards smartly before assuming. While things are being organized, I want you two to continue your usual work, putting all the pieces together with the case, making connections, anything that can assist Precinct Seven with the investigation. If you stay out of trouble, I may even let you two in on the raid, when we're ready."
"Really? You mean it?" Judy asked, her large ears shooting up in excitement.
"I do. Due to our lack of resources, however, bringing together a strong enough force to counter the power of an inner-district crime-lord, well... It might take some time."
"Will you ask Precinct One for assistance?" Nick questioned curiously.
"That's the plan. The Deciduous-District hasn't had anything this exciting happen here since the first timber fell. We'll need all of the help that we can get."
"And that includes us, sir!" The rabbit piped out, all the while raising her paw up to administer a steadfast salute to her superior. "Nick and I will do everything we can!"
Chief Urzo grinned, clearly satisfied with the bunny officer's display of loyalty and determination.
"Excellent. For now, you're both dismissed, but come tomorrow, I expect you to be working full-time on making sense of everything that you've uncovered so far."
"What about the raid, though?"
"Assuming there is one, it won't be for at least another few days. I will notify you when the time comes, regardless of whether or not we get the go-ahead to enact it. Oh, and also, I'll keep you updated on the search warrant that we created for that bat that you fought in Beaverdam, Hopps. From the sound of it, she's another enemy in our sights."
"Sounds good to me!" Nick exclaimed, giving an approving thumbs up to his boss, whom just sighed out loud before grumbling;
"Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some paperwork to take care of, thanks to that mess you two made at that warehouse."
At that, the grizzly bear tipped his hat down in a gesture of condolences before turning around and leaving the break room, though not before plucking one last donut from the box on the table. Smiling to himself, Nick glanced towards his smaller partner with a half-lidded gaze, and promptly locked eyes with her as she looked over and up to him, in turn.
"I dunno about you, Carrots, but I could use a bathroom break." He then stared down at his sticky fingers. "This leftover donut glaze isn't gonna wash itself off. Let's go."
10:09 P.M , Somewhere in the woodlands...
Trudging through the thick of the darkening forest around him, the tasmanian-devil, Iluka Rombahe, couldn't have felt any less welcome than he already did.
Since birth, he'd grown up living and playing in his home, Outback-Island; A dusty, arid island far away from the mainland city of Zootopia. The small family property that he'd been raised on was far from easy: He had been nurtured amongst blistering afternoon heat, and swarms of flesh-nipping flies, ultimately forging the young marsupial into a rough and tough kind of mammal, with a taste for adventure and a thirst for discovery. Iluka adored exploring the world around him, whether it was admiring the starry night sky from the rocky, open plains of the Outback, or simply appreciating a walk in the park, there was little that the tasmanian devil found more appealing than the great outdoors.
Yet for all of his outdoorsmanship and love of adventure, to Iluka, the Deciduous-District felt like a foreign and alien sort of place. Far away from the shores of Outback-Island, where marsupials were rarely seen, the tasmanian-devil couldn't help but feel as though he and the men that he had brought with him stuck out like sore thumbs amongst the crowds of regular mammals, as they probably called themselves. To them, marsupials were likely seen as nothing more than some mammalian offshoot to be ridiculed and hated.
It seemed that for every pair of eyes that his own met, there were two more looking back at him with distrustful stares. It didn't surprise him very much, for at the very least, he was pleased that he was able to walk around in public with relatively little fear of suddenly being recognized as the crime-lord of Outback-Island. With his homeland being so far away and not of any real importance to the civilians living here in the woodlands, the chances of someone realizing his true identity were slim, or at least, slimmer than usual.
Alongside the public suspicion that came with his arrival in the Deciduous-District, the fact that the climate and landscape were so different from his home also served as a point of unwavering intimidation on his part; He was far too used to dust, flies, orange-tinted boulders, and spiny brown shrubs beneath his feet. Here, the vegetation was much more prominent and powerful, and the trees seemed as mighty as the tallest of skyscrapers, in his eyes. As a marsupial, he felt out of place in the woodlands, so far away from home.
Despite his discomfort, he acknowledged the fact that he was here for a reason: This latest adventure of his had the potential to end up being his greatest.
In the current moment, deep in the denser woods of the Deciduous-District's wild forests, Iluka and a large pack of his marsupial brethren marched through the ever-darkening forest, closing in on their final destination with each step forward. All of the mammals carried something in their paws, with some holding wooden boxes full of dynamite, and others brandishing various tools ranging from pickaxes to sledgehammers. Their next excavation, next hunt, would be one cloaked in social secrecy, and in physical darkness.
Some of the marsupials even carried computers and other technological devices, all of which, despite being comparatively advanced to some of the tools and other work items that were brought with them, would be of great use to their cause. Archaeological excavations weren't always just shovels and brushes, after all. Iluka led the big pack from the front, carrying only the comparatively small cane that he had received at the warehouse in Beaverdam from earlier that day. Soon, the group of marsupials reached their goal...
The cavern entrance stood gloomy and fortified against the side of the mountain, the mouth of the cave spawning haunting moans as the cool nighttime breeze blew against the rocks. Snaking vines hovered from the rocks above, and farther inside, the tasmanian devil could see that the walls of the cave only became smoother as they led on, deeper into the dark depths of the mountain. Here, Iluka and his men intended on finishing the job that they had been working towards for years now: Finding the tomb of the great Elktic king, Alastrine Brockernos, whom died many thousands of years ago, and yet no modern historian nor archaeologist had been able to find his burial site in all those years.
"We're here!" Iluka hollered to his associates. "Break out the flashlights, gentlemammals, because from here on out, it's gonna get even inkier."
From the behind of him, the crime-lord of Outback-Island heard his second in command, Ramic Roofis, jump down into a small puddle and sigh aloud.
"Golee, that feels good." The kangaroo murmured as he buried his toes in the cool dirt. "Definitely a big difference from the Outback, eh? The ground there is bloody scorching."
Iluka snorted through his nostrils. "Don't get too comfortable, mate. Once our business here is done, we're heading right back home to our island." He claimed.
"Ah, phooey. That's no fun. At least here I don't have to lick myself just to keep cool."
"Quit your whinging, ya sook!" One of the other marsupials, a fat little wombat, called out to the larger male kangaroo. "It ain't that bad!"
"Enough bickering. Just focus on the job, lads; We've got a fat load a' work to do here." Iluka ordered, all the while gesturing to the innards of the cave entrance before them.
"Sorry, boss." The wombat stated, though he didn't seem very authentic. His ears promptly shot up in excitement. "Hey, hey, ya think we'll find it?" He asked. "The tomb?"
The tasmanian devil's expression hardened. "We will find it. I'll tear open every pebble in this district, if I have to. Now come!" He roared, causing some of his men to wince.
Iluka himself trudged ahead and into the dark depths of the cavern, his underlings following shortly behind, though a few in the back kept their distance, hoping that they hadn't angered their boss; They all knew the consequences of such intermittent rage. Though they feared his hair-trigger temper, at times, they also knew and recognized the fact that Iluka wasn't a cruel mammal, and was quite a well respected leader amongst the Outback-Island mob, never afraid to get his paws dirty in order to get their job done effectively.
Despite his normally resolute determination, Iluka seemed to be displaying rather excessive amount of interest with this latest archaeological outing of his; Over the weeks that the marsupials had been searching for the tomb of Alastrine, the pack's leader only appeared to grow more obsessive with each passing day, though, they couldn't blame him. They all knew just how important it was to him, and didn't question his motives nor desires. After all, he was the one that handled their many respective paychecks, in the end.
Money... Crime was all about money. Always had been, always will be.
Though of course, there were still those occasional rare exceptions that were in it just for the pure fun of it, but in the end, the central premise always orbited cold, hard cash. Plain and simple. In the past, Iluka himself had been berated many times by various critics, whom frequently happened to point out that how despite being an archaeologist, he almost always kept whatever he found for himself, or sold it on the black market. Said critics claim that because of this fact, Iluka cared not for the true history of mammalian culture, like true archaeologists were supposed to. They called him a fraud, a liar, a cheat, wannabe, and every other synonymous name for a manipulative fabricator out there.
After all, how could Iluka Rombahe, being a marsupial himself, dare to have the will and nerve to discredit and disregard the relics of his cultural past in such seemingly ill ways?
Museums may have always had an open hand ready to accept whatever was discovered in the big, brave world, but the tasmanian devil crime-lord of Outback-Island always considered the safest paws to be his own. He was a marsupial, yes, but not just any chip off the old block: Iluka was a direct descendant of an age-old, long dead warrior chief, Kolrak Rombahe, who reigned over a large tribe of indigenous tasmanian devils decades before the first mainland colonizer had set foot on the red shores of Outback-Island.
Having been fascinated by his own heritage for a very long time, Iluka Rombahe wasn't prone to reading up on the history of his ancestry. Apparently, unlike the marsupial tribes of kangaroos, wombats, wallabies, and other vegetarian marsupials that once inhabited the ancient island, the tasmanian devil tribe was a fierce, war-like band of brutish fighters and terribly insatiable carnivores. Unlike the other tribes, which mostly stuck to agriculture, the fierce tasmanian devils conquered land and devoured their enemies.
Much territory was assimilated under Kolrak's rule, and now, centuries later, there are still dig sites which unearth the bones of and relics of the ancient past. Nowadays, due to his ancestry, much of what Kolrak once owned now belonged to Iluka himself, including the land and whatever artifacts were buried deep within them. Because of his ownership over them, along with his ancestry in specific, he doesn't even see himself as stealing the old marsupial artifacts: He simply sees himself as reacquiring them, as if they are as birthright. He sees them as his to take and do with as he pleases, and so, he sees no loss of morale nor honor from simply choosing to sell his finds to the highest bidder, either.
Being such a culturally attuned sort of mammal, Iluka adorned himself with marks of his people: Marsupial tribal cloth, wooden beads, and line art whittled into his claws. To him, honoring your past and history was everything. It was what made the stories of the past worth telling, and the paths of the future worth hoping for. This was the rule of life.
But sometimes, rules were meant to be broken.
Deeper in the depths of the cave, placing one foot in front of the other with each and every individual step, Iluka Rombahe felt his fists clench into balls as he thought to himself.
All those tossers at the museum may think I'm crazy... May think Elkscalibur is just some old legend... But I'll prove them wrong. And it all starts with this...
The tasmanian devil stared down at the cane-sword that he gripped in one of his meaty paws. Although he knew that it may have once belonged to that despicable rat, Grygorri, he also knew a few secrets about it that even the blackmailer himself would have been proud of. Iluka smiled. Grasping the handle of the cane with both paws, he pushed as hard as he could on it, promptly causing the protrusion to snap right off of the body of the cane, along with the hidden blade tucked away inside. Iluka then tossed the scabbard, with the sword still inside of it, off and to the side, where it loudly clattered against the hard rocks of the cave, splintering in a few places before rolling to a halt behind a boulder.
Smiling down at the broken ball-handle of the cane, Iluka shook the object around lightly, soon causing a small item to slip out from the hole where the handle had once been fastened to the body of the cane and the blade itself. With the handle emptied of its insides, he then tossed it behind him as well, having no use for it anymore. Now, the only thing that mattered to him was sitting in the palm of his paw: A small, black flash-drive. Simple as it may have looked, the tasmanian devil knew the true worth of its contents.
Legend or not, there's not a snowball's chance in the Outback that I'm going back home empty handed.
Hey Everyone!
Looks like things are starting to pick up a bit more now, huh? I bet you thought that Iluka wanted the sword just for safekeeping, no? Nope. Ratsputin hid a flash drive inside of it, as we saw, hoping for his work to be continued. We're reaching the final turning point of the 6th arc, and it is about to go down! Yessiree, soon we will be learning even more about Iluka's nefarious intentions and motivations, and how Nick and Judy plan to stop him! Stay tuned for the coming chapters!
I appreciate you all taking the time to read through this latest chapter of ours. I worked pretty hard on it, so I'd be very grateful if you were to perhaps leave a nice review detailing your thoughts on the chapter. As always, feedback is greatly appreciated. Alongside that, do feel free to favorite/follow this story of ours if you haven't already! We're reaching yet another big milestone, and I'd absolutely adore it if we could make it by the end of the month! If we do, I'm thinking that we'll be able to fit some kind of reward for you guys! Perhaps a bonus chapter, or something? We'll see when we get there.
For now, I write...
Next up, just a minor announcement: As of late, I've been going back and doing some revisions for some of my earlier chapters, many of which are understandable of lower quality than these more recent ones of ours. Although I've rewritten vast portions of quite a few of them, I just want to make mention of the fact that I currently don't intend on going back and completely rewriting every single bit of every single chapter. WIF is a huge story, and keeping up with it as it presently stands is already demanding enough on its own, so going back and redoing stuff I've already written seems a bit difficult.
I mean, going back and redoing roughly half a million words is quite the challenge, amiright? :P
I'm certain that you can get where I'm coming from with this. As of now, the older chapters will stay as they are, though I might go back and do more revisions in the near future, since whenever I look back at those old chapters, I just can't help but cringe when I read through what I wrote. I think that's a good sign, unfortunate as it may seem, since it means that as a writer, I've personally improved my set of skills and other abilities over time. I'd call that a win. So yeah, that's that: If any of you have any questions about my intentions with this story, whether it be with revisions or future chapters, all you have to do is ask. I respond to all forms of communication as soon as I get the chance. Regardless, I thank you all for your dedication to this project of ours, truly.
Anyhow, that's pretty much all that I have to say for now, my friends. Thanks for reading, and do stay tuned for the next chapter, coming your way soon! :)
'Till next time...
Peace!